


Marks of the Force

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Gen, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 17:04:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9501419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: When half the Temple gained marks almost overnight, they had to investigate. Some were names, some were symbols, but far too many were just letters and numbers. Anakin Skywalker already had two marks when his hit; he's just thankful it's on his platonic side this time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All my love to Ilyena_Sylph for the brainstorming that went into this; honestly, I should be crediting her as a cowriter on it.
> 
> [Original post on tumblr that sparked it](http://lectorel.tumblr.com/post/115288114623/star-wars-soul-mark-au)
> 
> And a shout out to Poplitealqueen for the Jango/Mace in the background here.

_The Sith hid for ages, planning, pushing, plotting. Unfortunately for them, the Force was not easily pushed to the bidding of zealots. Just as it had found a way to temper the Jedi Order, and guide the Guardians of the Whills, it found a way to teach a lesson to the Sith._

Marks or words on the left were of the heart, and if they were on the right, they were of the soul, or so the saying went. Many people were delighted to have the same mark or word on both. 

Anakin had not. But then, Anakin had been difficult, when long meditations had finally given him his words back. On his left were two words, and when he confronted Obi-Wan about his left wrist, he had found his name there, brighter than the still fading mark of a river-stone. Rumor said Qui-Gon Jinn had never showed his marks to his padawan, and Anakin half-believed it, because of how Obi-Wan had tried to hide his wrist.

The other word on his left was 'Angel', and Padmé had the same script-type marking out 'Ani'. For a Jedi to have a mark outside the Order was uncommon, but it had to be allowed. It was said the Force put those marks on people to guide them.

Then, a few years after arriving at the Temple, new words and marks were appearing on many Jedi. Some on the left, some on the right. Anakin looked at his, trying to determine if it was a cat's ears, an insect, or something else. He showed them to Obi-Wan, who was oh so careful about their interactions, trying not to layer the odds any more in his favor for the future, when Anakin could choose.

"Why do you have a mark of Mandalore on your wrist? At least it's the right, as I am certain your Angel would prefer not to cope with yet another suitor when you are of age."

"What is it?"

"Jaig Eyes. A mark of valor among the Mandalorians."

+++

Anakin didn't know what to think at the meeting of all those who had suddenly gotten new marks, often symbols, or combinations of letters and numbers that made no sense. The scrawny little Togruta sitting between Masters Ti and Koon kept staring at him, though, and eventually it made him wander over and crouch in front of her.

"Can I help you, youngling?"

For answer, she showed her right arm to him, with 'skyguy' scrawled in sloppy type there… under the Jaig Eyes.

"I don't have your name, little one, but I have those," Anakin said, even as he thought the nickname suited him more than he wanted to admit, being a mature twelve-year old.

She pulled her other wrist around, and the Jaig Eyes clearly marked the left as well.

"'Soka's not been very verbal since all of this started," Master Ti said gently, to explain the lack of words. "Togruta tend to get our marks later in life. We suspected the one she had after arriving at the Temple was tied up in you, but you had your own issues to deal with. Now she's been having nightmares again, more severe than the ones from when she first came to us, and the added marks have pushed her too far to be comfortable in Basic."

Anakin, unsure around Master Koon, who was on the Council (and they didn't seem to like him, no matter how hard he tried), started to just nod and move on, but then Knight Secura was there, her lekku casting a very awkward feeling on her presence to his eyes.

"Nightmares?" She gave Anakin a small smile before focusing on the youngling while Master Fisto moved to sit beside Master Koon. Anakin caught the flick of the lekku, and thought that somehow Master Fisto was part of the awkwardness, which was just strange, because everyone liked Kit Fisto.

"She keeps seeing storms over large bodies of water," Master Koon said, his voice protective of the small girl's suffering. "And waking because she feels she is drowning."

Aayla and Kit both stiffened, and Anakin wondered if maybe he should stop guarding his own dreams so much. That was one Jedi trick he had learned well, hating the torturous what-ifs that nightmares brought him.

"How many of us have those dreams?" Kit asked, even as he held his hand out to Aayla, offering comfort, offering to draw her into the seat beside him. It let Anakin see the yellow-gold mark there, just a simple bar, on the right wrist. Aayla, reaching with her left, had that mark, and a symbol for water… or tentacles, Anakin's quick eye saw. As she settled, Ti and Koon exchanged a look, before the elder man rose and went to the front of the room.

"We are all affected by the recent spate of marks suddenly appearing," Plo said, and it made Anakin wonder what his robes hid, "but now we have another concern. Who here is dreaming of a stormy ocean, or of drowning?"

Almost half the hands rose, and Anakin noticed Master Windu, his very own walking nightmare, was one of those. He had only ever had Master Billaba's name and jewel on his right wrist, they said, so Anakin was really surprised to see him present.

"Then, my friends, it seems the Force is very pointedly trying to draw our attention to something. I suggest we find it, and then we may have answers as to why so many names have suddenly appeared," Plo told them all, before breaking them into small groups to discuss the dreams, and analyze them.

+++

_The Sith never intended for Kamino to be found before the plan was fully ready. Nor did they account for the fact that the Order, despite its aloof posturing to maintain neutrality, actually did understand the sanctity of the soul-marks._

_Then again, the Sith never understood love, and thought their counterparts had banished it in their search for serenity._

Anakin soon learned that both Plo Koon and Shaak Ti had many, many marks that snaked around their right arms, too small to read without magnification. He learned that Ahsoka and Aayla were the rare ones, with a mark on both wrists that indicated their romantic partner would also be a friend of the soul for them.

He learned Mace Windu was a dangerous man when innocent lives were at stake, and slowly learned to let go of his own anger, by watching the Master of the Order rein his in, as they kept hitting dead ends in their research.

He watched as a young Knight he didn't know very well had to be consoled and supported by xir friends, because the new mark had suddenly begun to fade, indicating that death had happened. That was a union that would never be known now, but a new line of numbers and letters appeared, just a few digits different than the first set, making them all wonder more about the nature of their soul ties.

Anakin knew the choice was always going to be his. He was so much younger than Obi-Wan, and a little younger than his Angel. The marks were only guides, to help people find the right possible fits. He watched Ahsoka struggling with all of the complications, and somewhere in the second month of searching, he found a new word under the Jaig Eyes, 'Snips', in the same sloppy type that hers said 'Skyguy' in. He smiled, and decided that was one tie he was not rejecting, showing it to her the next time they were working on the problem together.

"Okay?"

It was the first time he'd heard her speak Basic; what little she did speak was in the trills and bird sounds of Togruti, which Plo understood, and Ti would sometimes think to translate.

"Yes, Snips. It's fine."

She launched into his arms and held his neck in a fierce hug, and Anakin decided he would try dreaming with her, see if together they could find the clue needed to discover what planet they were seeing. She had, according to Plo, been the only one to see it all clearly enough to make out a city rising out of the water in the background.

+++

It was Master Yoda that gave them the clue, after Anakin braved a night dreaming with a Togruta child against his chest, and Plo monitoring. Anakin was learning that Plo generally kept his opinions to himself until he felt strongly about them, and that was why he had been silent when the Council judged him unworthy.

Plo had also let slip that Obi-Wan had come to them privately, after the blow-up with Master Qui-Gon, and shown them his mark. It had swayed a lot of opinions, especially his own, before they ever came to Naboo.

The three were able to share a glimpse of a long-necked being they did not recognize, but one Yoda knew as a legend from his youth. Once all three got over their hysterics at the idea of MASTER YODA as a youngling, amidst many thumps of a gimer stick, Yoda had led them to the archives to research a Jedi ally. Her entry was whole, but those that tangentially should have connected, like her planet of origin, were missing from the Archive, leading them to intensify their hunting. 

Mace, when informed of the missing files, set Aayla to tracing the breach in security, and once she had traced the worm through their data archives, sent Quinlan to observe the potential culprit. He found it hard to believe a respected Jedi Master like Dooku of Serenno would be involved, but trusted Quinlan's skills to learn more of what the retired Jedi was up to.

They then turned to living sources of information, touching base with friends of all walks, to see if anyone knew where a planet called Kamino was, as that was where the Jedi ally Yoda remembered was said to come from.

+++

_The Sith plans hinged on a crucial timetable. It also hinged on certain pieces being manipulated more fully._

_Sometimes plans failed because such things were not met._

In retrospect, allowing Plo Koon and Shaak Ti to handle the observation and potential contact mission was possibly not the wisest course the Council could have picked. Everyone agreed that the only possible worse choice than the two of them would have been Master Windu, something the Master of the Order did not even argue against.

He had issues, major ones, with the poor treatment of helpless beings.

Unfortunately, so did the two that went. It had been hoped that the fact they were platonically bound to so many of these unknown beings would factor into keeping them calm. Shaak's calm and Plo's serenity abandoned them both the moment the Kaminoans spoke of 'culls' and 'disposal' of 'failed units'.

Less than a standard week later, every clone that had already been 'uncorked', from toddler up to what appeared to be six year olds, had been evacuated from Kamino to a moon that had an ancient temple on it. The Jedi Order, without actually informing the Senate of any of their movements, as distrust of events was running high, set about establishing their new home there, transferring their elderly, their young, and their disabled, along with the archives (piece by piece), to the ancient temple.

A task force, headed by Master Fisto and Knight Secura, and using AgriCorps support staff, moved to Kamino, to oversee the infants in their incubation jars. No more were to be produced, and the source specimen had been detained, adeptly, by Plo and Shaak in their first visit.

Word, of course, eventually leaked out, first to the Sith, who spun it into a nefarious scheme whispered on less than reputable HoloNet sites at first.

That was when Adi Gallia stepped in and braced the Senate with pictures of the poor children, framing the whole scheme as a plot they had uncovered with the help of the Force, and throwing the blame squarely on the shoulders of a now-disgraced former Jedi Master, one Count Dooku of Serenno. Quinlan Vos provided the damning evidence of sedition between the Count and various powers that had been expressing discontent with the Republic.

"The children are wards of the Order, until they are of an age to choose lives for themselves," Adi Gallia said, and few dared protest, because some of the images, of broken bodies and hollow-eyed children that had suffered from the 'training simulations' had aroused great ire in many parts of the Senate.

+++

_The plan hinged on one key piece, the end result of a prophecy that had been purposefully planted in the Jedi Order so long ago that it was nearly a myth. That one piece being placed out of reach was not making the plan easier._

As Plo Koon and Shaak Ti had noted the lack of soul marks on the boys, Jedi uniform for the new Temple made it mandatory that all wrists, arms, hands, tentacles and other appendages that might have been marked by any of the boys' names, symbols, or designations were to be hidden at all times. No undue influence was to be placed on their young charges, and any Jedi who did discover 'their' boy among the children was encouraged to be very careful in how they interacted.

Anakin had no issue with that; he had usually kept his covered, because it was sometimes embarrassing to deal with having his master's name on his wrist, let alone his Angel. So very few Jedi matched outside the Temple, after all. He had been sent to the new Temple with his master, as he was under the rank of Senior Padawan. They still took missions, of course, but something about being away from Coruscant was so freeing that Anakin was actually happy to be in his classes for once.

Classes, after all, had the boys in them too. The eldest ones were now roughly seven human-equivalent years old, and curious as they could be. Getting them to a point they felt safe enough to be curious and ask questions or refuse tasks had been a long road, and not all of them were there, but many were.

Anakin found he liked helping them learn about more than tactics, and military related tasks. While they could all read and write, starting with the group that was nearing four human equivalent years, they had been trained to a certain purpose. Helping them find new interests was a task for all of the healers, teachers, initiates, and padawans, as well as the support staff from the AgriCorps and other branches of the Jedi Civil Staff.

The way the small batches of brothers tended to latch onto a single person and keep them as their focal person would have been unnerving, except Vokara Che had found the evidence in their genetic structure that their empathy receptors had been tampered with, to purposefully make them imprint on a Jedi. That added yet another sinister layer to the very idea of their existence, to go alongside the unknown purposes of the chips that had been found during the initial medical processing. Those had very quickly been extracted, after Anakin pointed out what such things normally did in slaves.

While none of the chips proved to be explosive, the encrypted data on them was being studied by the best slicers the Order could find.

Anakin was in class the day the bounty hunters came. Many of the Knights and Masters were helping with renovations to the Temple they had taken over, but classes went on. This one was being held outside, educating them all on the dangers and benefits of the native fauna and flora.

The bounty hunters killed the teacher before the class even knew they were there. Anakin, and the other padawans in the class, as well as two older initiates with their own lightsabers prepared to defend the boys, even as several gas grenades were tossed, already spewing fumes. Anakin took a deep breath and tried to push those back away, but he felt the gas take effect on both initiates and three of his fellow padawans on the other side of the class.

The boys had all grabbed air at the first sign of the grenades, and massed into a phalanx. This body suddenly rushed forward at the three bounty hunters standing closest together, prompting Anakin to very swiftly join the fight, with the last remaining padawan joining him. Anakin could feel some of the boys getting stunned, or just tossed aside hard enough to rattle, but he could see, the effect of the small warriors swarming the bounty hunters.

One, the one that tended to connect with Anakin in the classes they shared, acquired the blaster from his target, and put it to use. Stun-blasts on short range were devastating, and the bounty hunter fell like a sack of flour. The blond boy, one of the genetic anomalies that probably would have been killed, then flipped the switch on the weapon back to lethal, and put a bolt through the head of another bounty hunter that was struggling under the weight of the boys mobbing him. The third that had been rushed tried to disengage then, as did the pair that had been along the flanks of the class.

"Get that one," Anakin ordered the other padawan, and they quickly took down the two flankers… while the blond kid shot the third that had been in the mix of child warriors in the knee, sending him crashing to the ground.

"Secure him!" the blond ordered his classmates, his brothers, and they listened, giving way to his authority with ease.

By the time any of the masters or Knight arrived, there were two dead bounty hunters, three captive bounty hunters, and a mass of overly protective younglings surrounding their brothers who had gotten hurt, as well as the gassed Jedi youths. Anakin, being senior to the other padawan, despite being younger, carefully recounted the entire event, not protesting when Obi-Wan arrived and rested a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

"Have you picked a name yet, Seventy-Five Sixty-Seven?" Anakin finally got to ask as the adults moved to get them all inside and the bounty hunters into custody.

"Not yet, sir—"

"Anakin," the padawan corrected gently.

"—Anakin," the blond conceded. "But I'll be thinking on it more now."

"Why's that?" Anakin asked him, knowing a lot of the boys were nowhere near choosing names, and wanting to know why.

"Actually proved I'm not so defective," the boy said without missing a beat or being more than slightly self-conscious of himself.

There was a long moment where Anakin's temper flared white-hot, not at the boy, but at the Kaminoans. He had to muscle it back down, pull his control to him, and then he stepped over into the boy's space with determination. He put both hands on the boy's shoulders, meeting his eyes firmly.

"You, nor any of your brothers, are defective, no matter how you deviate from the way Jango Fett appears and his abilities. You are all unique beings, and deserve names, not numbers," Anakin managed to say. "Spread the word for me… and find a name, okay?"

"Yes sir!"

+++

_Frustration can be an interesting ally to your enemies. It's hard to maintain a cloak of kindliness around your actions when you're trying to find a way around thwarted plans._

The same month that the last clones were evacuated from Kamino, the Republic exploded with the Sith plots that had been aimed at undoing it, when the Chancellor's mask slipped long enough for Saesee Tiin to glimpse the truth.

Every member of the Order that could be spared was pulled back to Coruscant, leaving the new Temple and all the clones and the youngest Jedi in the care of elderly Jedi, AgriCorps members, and the Senior Padawans that had been left to watch over them all.

Of course the Separatists attacked then.

Little did they know that Obi-Wan Kenobi had brokered a deal with the Duchess of Mandalore, having her find some of her more trustworthy political adversaries, offering them teaching posts with the Jedi for the sake of the boys. A handful of them, once they had spoken to Jango Fett, had taken up that offer as a way of continuing the Warrior Traditions in this new generation of Fetts.

Between the padawans, initiates, and pre-adolescent death machines, the Mandalorian warriors had managed to cobble together a serious defense against the invading droids seeking to end the Jedi and capture the clones. Fett, leading the efforts, swore a blue streak in his head as he realized he was aiding and abetting the survival of the Jedi so fully, a thing he would not have touched for all the credits in the galaxy not three years beforehand.

He had Boba to think of. And, after a long talk with Plo Koon, he had to admit that he could have a lasting legacy in the galaxy by better preparing and training all of the boys. That had led to the need to protect the damnable Jedi, though, not helped at all by the fact that one of them had gotten under his skin too intimately, damn his bald head and viciously effective fighting styles.

Little by little, the droids were pushed back, destroyed, by the combined efforts of people too old, too young, and too unskilled to be deemed a threat, with guidance from some of the deadliest bounty hunters in existence. Jango kept moving, his goal that of reaching the creche, as Boba was in there, his legacy and beloved son.

A trail of droid parts made it clear that the creche had been a target, as Jango had postulated, and he hurried, thinking not just of Boba but of the others, the youngest of the clones that had only just been integrated into their lives. As he came around a corner to find the last of the attack squad faced off with some of the oldest of the boys, Jango felt a deep, lasting pride build to a peak. 

There were injured boys, probably a few dead ones, but one of the oldest boys, one of the genetic anomalies with pale hair, had managed to cordon the creche off with furniture and debris in such a way as to create a choke point that did not allow the droids much access. Physically eight years old, only four in actual years, and the boy was calmly, coolly, directing his 'squad' and the Jedi brats. Those, the boy kept having pull destroyed droid parts in, adding to the cordon, while his squad used deadly accuracy with the droids own weapons on the attacking force.

Jango put an end to that fight swiftly, picking off the heavier models with his rockets, blasting them away from the boys and the Jedi brats. When he had managed to clear the corridor and join the defenses, his eyes fell on little Boba, helping some of the other little ones shove pulse packs into blasters to keep the fighters supplied. 

Maybe Plo Koon and Mace Windu had been right. He had a name that would ring for generations, through these children he had helped bring into creation.

+++

It wasn't that Ahsoka was allowed to disappear from the creche or classes so much as no one had, as yet, managed to keep her from doing so. She would behave for as long as she could, and when the inevitable boredom kicked in, or something scurried across her awareness, she was off and exploring the Temple.

Unfortunately for them all, the scurrying happened quite a bit, as the Temple had been open to the elements and animals for a long time. Ahsoka's instincts to hunt were too strong, when the teachers were strapped to meet the needs of the more conformist younglings they were responsible for.

So it happened that Ahsoka was just finishing a perfect pounce, catching the small lizard-like rodent for a snack when the boy came around the corner, making her whirl to see who was there. And found herself staring at the boy's chest, where a symbol she knew too well, had known since all of this started, blazed in blue threads stitched into the red tunic he wore.

"Hello," the boy said, even as both of her wrists itched and burned under their wraps at meeting **him** so suddenly.

"Hi…" she managed to say, shyly, as she hid her prey behind her back and scuffled her feet shyly. She tried to find better words, tried to communicate properly, yet words, again, failed her. She backed up a little, and then decided she couldn't do this, turning and retreating at speed to where she was supposed to be, leaving the boy with the Jaig Eyes very confused.

+++

Anakin came back from the extended mission on Coruscant with Obi-Wan and found that his quarters had been invaded by a waist-high Togruta. The seven-year old was not an infrequent companion when Anakin was home, but this was the first he'd known of her hiding in his space.

Granted, from what Jango Fett had passed on to Obi-Wan while they were trying to end the Sith plans on Coruscant, Anakin really couldn't blame her, even as he wondered what she had done during the droid invasion. He rather doubted she had just sat by and behaved. Just because she was small and young did not dampen her nature as a huntress at all.

"Hey Snips," he said, rather than fuss, watching her uncurl from the ball she had been sleeping in on his bed. The next moment he was staggering back under an orange, blue, and white missile who wrapped arms around his waist, holding on for dear life.

Did she suspect that he'd briefly been kidnapped by the Sith's minions? He hadn't been in terrible danger, as the man wanted him alive, but she was so upset.

"Saw him."

The two words were almost too soft to hear, but they penetrated, made him realize she was rubbing her wrists where they touched his body. That made it make sense. While Ahsoka's communication skills still suffered in points of high stress, it would take that kind of shock to push her towards not talking in full sentences. She had been working so hard on not letting older younglings have fuel for teasing her, after all, when her Force abilities kept pushing her up into their classes.

"Tell me how you knew?" Anakin invited, so he could learn the boy's signature.

She reached up to touch his hair, standing on tiptoes. "Bright. Yellow? Not right word… blond." She frowned, concentrating on the Basic that sometimes had too many words for simple things. "Oldest group. Has mark on his tunic," she said.

"Sounds like Seventy-Five Sixty-Seven, except I've never seen him with the mark on any of his things," Anakin mused. "Still, I would not be surprised if he didn't do something during the invasion to earn the mark; he was pretty fearless in the kidnapping attempt." He then gently disengaged her arms so he could sit on the bed, letting her tuck under his arm once he had. "Why did it upset you enough to hide in here?"

Ahsoka drew in a deep breath, then shook her head rather than try and put it in words that she had been scared and shy and embarrassed. So many humans had issues with her tendency to hunt snacks, after all, and he was about the same age, in appearance, as a lot of the ones that teased her for being a 'savage'.

"You know the marks don't mean you will be bound to him, right?" Anakin pressed, worried about that in ways few others would be. "It just means a good possibility, but you are _free_ and always will be, 'Soka," he told her.

"I know. Master Plo and Master Shaak both said it," she answered that carefully. "But… both?" She pulled her arms in front of her, where she had removed the wraps earlier to stare at the marks before she fell asleep.

"Even if they are on both," Anakin affirmed. "Maybe the friendship will just be really intense, Snips. Kind of what I think will happen between me and my Master," he added. 

"Maybe," Ahsoka said softly before making herself pull into her own space, squaring her shoulders. "Seventy-Five Sixty-Seven… why is he still using his numbers?"

"The last time I had a class with him, he still hadn't found one he cared for," Anakin told her. "He's in a lot of my practical courses, real smart. He's also the one—" Anakin's voice trailed off, before he raised a hand up to cradle his forehead. "—he's the one that is most attentive to me.

"What if that's what's going on, Snips? All the ones that micro-focus on a particular Knight or Padawan, even some Masters? It's the marks, the Force, whatever pulling them at each other."

Ahsoka tipped her head, then brightened. "Wrong way around, Skyguy? The marks only show what the Force glimpsed; we all hid the marks, because the boys don't have any. So there's no way to influence them to be anything but natural, right?"

Anakin was both proud of her and relieved to see her recovering her words, now that she was thinking in a different path than about the marks that could have seemed like chains to her free spirit. "You're right, Snips. The marks only show glimpses, which is why some of the Knights had their marks fade, when their connections were lost.

"So yeah, you and I know it, but the Masters might not have seen it yet."

"Our secret, then. And I will be nice to Seventy-Five Sixty-Seven without being dumb," she added, of her own free will and unprompted.

"Of course you will, Little One. You're always smart like that," he praised, before letting the subject fall away, prodding her to talk to him about the time he'd missed here.

+++

As the Force would have it, the boy was in Anakin's class the very next day, on de-escalation tactics. Sometimes, the thirteen year old Padawan wondered if the classes were appropriate, but then his Master had showed him security clips, in the name of familiarizing himself with the new droids that had come, and he'd seen the eight year olds be more effective than some of the initiates!

"Hey," he greeted, taking in the mark of the Jaig Eyes on the tunic. "I see you're one of our heroes from the invasion now."

The blond-haired boy flushed a little, the dark tone of his skin making that bright hair stand out all the more. "The Fett insisted that we wear the awards, as inspiration to others, and a reminder to ourselves that we set the example."

Anakin's mouth twisted in amusement. Jango becoming 'the Fett' was apparently a Mando thing, since he would not use the title of Mand'alor when he did not hold the planet or its system. 

"So did you pick a name to go with it?" Anakin asked him, walking with him over to a table to share, aware of the boy's batch filing in around them.

"Yes sir, Anakin. I've chosen Rex."

"It's good to meet you, Rex."

+++

Life… settled. The Separatists remained a threat, but they had no inside source with the Chancellor dead. The boys were growing up, adopting Jedi as _theirs_ in ways that highlighted how they had been engineered for the Jedi. From the feral boy that was on Plo's hip almost from the removal at Kamino to the serious one that became Boba's best friend because he had adopted Mace as **his** , the boys found their matches without ever having marks on their wrists.

Jango adapted to his clan of thousands of sons, while dealing with the fact that Mace-kriffing-Windu was more than his match in combat and love alike, settling to raise Boba and Ponds alike on their new world.

Ahsoka's marks slowly increased, as a younger batch that used a domino for their group symbol claimed her, but there was always Rex, because she was never far from Anakin. Rex, whose Jaig Eyes stayed on both wrists, while Hevy and the others appeared beside the platonic set, was never torn. His duty was to Anakin, his friend of the soul, but that meant protecting the little Togruta too.

The galaxy learned that to invite a Jedi to negotiate or to handle a problem was to host anywhere from a pair to a dozen of the same-faced youths in the years that followed. And the Jedi, having had their hearts opened to people outside their Temple, found that compassion was not the same as understanding. In learning to adapt to life with their boys, who fast became men, the Order found lessons in understanding the people they were meant to protect, guided by questions from the insightful young beings.

The Force was satisfied by the lessons learned as clones and Jedi merged into something greater than either alone had been.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [Dreamwidth](http://sharpest-asp.dreamwidth.org/) or [Tumblr](http://bow-weaver.tumblr.com/) if you ever want to make a request.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Father Finds Cub](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9687884) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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